A simple pit profile from my travels in the Wolf Creek Pass area yesterday.

Mild temps, strong spring sunshine, and a whole 'lotta water go a long way to help a snowpack begin healing and I'm psyched the January PWL is feeling some warm love from our recent storms. Now it gets tricky... sure, we're nearly a week past the peak of instability when the walls were caving in, but we're still seeing cracks in the snow and hearing subtle whumphing sounds. And while the snowpack is beginning to gain strength, all we need to do is find a weakness, maybe around a rock or a bush, collapse the pack, and now we're staring down the barrel of a dangerous slide. Let's give it a little more time before we begin stepping into big terrain. Avoidance and guilty until proven otherwise is still my approach today.

The kind of slide you could still trigger today by simply knocking the legs out from underneath.

Not quite as sensitive as yesterday, but I bet a few drifts, sensitive to our additional weight are found on steep, leeward slopes in the wind zone. Easy to identify by their fat, rounded appearance this is an equally easy avalanche dragon to avoid.

I match my terrain with the hazard and think... hmmm... even a small avalanche could knock me off my feet, straining me through consequential terrain like trees, rocks, or cliffs. No bueno.

Yesterday's storm snow will get its first taste of very warm temperatures and strong spring sunshine. Remember... even a small damp avalanche can stack up a tremendous amount of bone twisting debris, especially if it's channeled into a terrain trap like a gully or road cut.